Why WBENC?

In sponsoring MaineBiz 2013 Women to Watch, I’ve spent a good deal of time considering how lucky I am to be a female business owner in a culture where there are so many great resources that promote women in business. As a member of Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), I have a wealth of expertise and resources available to me for which I am grateful.

Tidestone Solutions is nationally certified by WBENC

With the core values of Certification, Opportunities, and Resources, it seemed practical to become WBENC-certified in order to gain access to the resources and opportunities available. Certification is no small task; you need to be persistent in the application process as it warrants a lot of time and resources to complete the documentation and review process. Once completed, there’s a breadth of resources available through the annual Summit event and the National Conference where their Matchmaking program connects corporate buyers to WBE’s. Our certification is managed wonderfully by the team at Center for Women & Enterprise in Boston.

As WBENC makes a serious effort to educate and promote diverse procurement programs, so too do the members take advantage of these educational opportunities. I’ve been impressed with dedication from corporate partners who have serious commitments to supplier diversity programs, such as Johnson & Johnson, and have enjoyed hearing how they keep that fire alive in their organization.

While we haven’t taken full advantage of the educational, philanthropic, or award systems well established in this organization, we continue to search for ways that WBENC can help us be more effective as we focus on customer service as our number one priority. Having this collective group of bold, dedicated women business owners, and the well-established corporate members, available to us – for this, we are grateful and grounded.